


The Hunter's Heart, The Hunter's Mouth

by Nighthaunting



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Curse Breaking, Dark Fantasy, Druid Mia, Druidic Rituals, Druids, F/M, Full Shift Werewolves, Gothic Romance, Married Couple, Mia Greymane Gets Her Man, Mild Blood, Mystical Connections To Gilneas Are A Thing For Greymane Kings Ok?, Obstinate Genn Greymane Causes All His Own Problems, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Roughness, Vaginal Sex, Vague Fisher King References, Very Liberal Borrowing From The Curse of the Worgen Comic, Werewolves, Witches, headcanons ahoy, mostly Mia POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 18:41:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13957638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighthaunting/pseuds/Nighthaunting
Summary: evidence of a love that transcends hungerGenn Greymane shoulders the burdens of his people, and leads the mission to distract the worgen while the capital is evacuated himself. He is never seen again. Now, they say the worgen have a king, who rules over wilderness and crumbling ruins; a hulking beast of grim visage and noble bearing.Mia Greymane would very much like her husband back, and Gilneas does not suffer losing her Kings easily.





	The Hunter's Heart, The Hunter's Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> For and inspired by [Carrinth](https://carrinthblogs.tumblr.com/post/157273635416/you-carrinth-nobody-asked-for-this-me-stares#notes)
> 
> Title and quotation from "Snow and Dirty Rain" by Richard Siken
> 
> The best Gilneas mood playlist I've ever found over [here](http://nighthaunting.tumblr.com/post/171679515406/thewinterking-for-the-ruins-of-a-once-proud-home)

Liam Greymane declares that he will go with Darius Crowley on the mission to distract the worgen, that it is his duty as a prince to defend his people, and for a long and terrible moment Genn Greymane cannot breathe. It is less than a heartbeat before he finds his voice again, and it is joined by Darius’ own, and Lord Godfrey’s, and the shifty-looking druid Liam had recruited as an assistant; all of them in agreement that Liam cannot risk his life. 

The quarrel that erupts is typical, but there is no denying that the heir to the throne cannot endanger himself needlessly, no matter how much he protests that Tess would rule just as well. To say that Liam’s relationship with his father had strained since the days of the Northgate Rebellion was an understatement, and now, he protests what he believes to be a move of calculation on his father’s part.

It is not calculation or politics that drives Genn Greymane now, however, but desperation. He must save his people from this fate, he must stop his son from endangering himself, he must soothe the dark waves of unease that wash through his soul; the ancient and demanding magicks that bind Gilneas’ kings to their nation dragging at his every thought with wants he does not yet understand. He does not have time to reassure his son that he has long understood the enormity of his mistakes, he does not have time to deal with the sharp glances that are passing between Crowley and Godfrey as they begin to discern which of them more firmly has their king’s ear.

He only has time to make one choice, before the deep and thrumming sense of time-running-out overwhelms him.

“Neither of you are going,” Genn snaps, mounting his horse and then wheeling around to grab the raggedy druid by the collar and pull them up onto the horse as well, “Your duty is as it has always been, Liam; to lead our people.”

He catches Darius’ eye for a moment, long enough to see the welling horror as his oldest and dearest friend realizes what he intends to do, but not long enough for anyone to stop him before Genn has turned his horse and dug his heels hard into its side and galloped away into the dark towards the cathedral.

A low whisper reaches his ears on the wind, as the druid clings shakily to his seat, “Is this...a wise choice, your majesty?”

The worgen are upon them nearly as soon as the first torch is flung, the goal of attracting them to gather at the cathedral so the refugees can escape seeming perversely easy compared to guiding and guarding the thousands of scared citizens fleeing through the mountain passes.

“No,” Genn mutters under his breath, as the cathedral looms out of the fog before them, “but it is a choice.”

_ On a cliff overlooking Gilneas City, it is impossible to ignore the furious howling of the worgen as something down in the city excites or terrifies them, the moon cresting through the clouds and the fog parting into a gentle drizzle of rain long enough that the burst of fire and shattering glass from the cathedral at the city’s center can be seen.  _

_ Liam Greymane thinks of his father’s final words to him, and cannot shake the sense of unease that fills him. _

_ They cannot linger for long, there is still the upper pass to cross; the gates to close and barricade; the news to be broken to their people, his sister, his mother. _

_ The King is dead.  _

* * *

Mia Greymane wears mourning black, but does not weep. She is the Queen still, rather than Queen Mother, and her spine is straight and her eyes are clear and dark, and there is so much grief in the blood of her people that if she adds her own she knows it will drown them. 

She holds court in Greymane Manor, as Genn would have done, and reigns over her nation of refugees as they struggle towards any cure for the curse they can find. 

She allowed a wake but not a funeral, and cannot bear to remember the gutted look on her son’s face as he told her the news. The wake alone was a trial, to stand and toast to her husband’s memory, to hear every anecdote that could conceivably put Genn in a positive light, to hear the words beneath it all in an endless mantra.

_ Stubborn man. Stubborn man. Stubborn man.  _

When they had been courting Genn had led Mia down one of the innumerable twisting passageways of the oldest parts of the palace--that had been built upon the castle that had been built upon the keep, that had been raised, ages ago, by Hákon the Grey-Maned himself--and shown her the ancient murals that commemorated the deeds of his ancestors. They had both been young, then, and although Genn was already king there had been ease and lightness about him still, before the trials of his reign had truly begun. His coal black hair already beginning to streak here and there with the silver that had given his line its namesake, but his ocean-teal eyes always dancing when he looked at her; the pride that had glowed from him as he’d spoken softly of his dreams, his desires, the gentleness of his hand in hers as they charted a course through Gilneas’ long history in the space of an afternoon. Mia had loved him in stages and increments from their first meeting, and in the dusty golden sunlight shafting down through the narrow slit windows that had been built for archers and then fitted with glass panes as the years had passed, she had seen at once a man and a king; the warmth of a husband she could love in one year or twenty, the strength of a ruler who wanted nothing more than safety and prosperity for his people and would fight and die to secure it. 

She had kissed him in that long-distant hallway of dreamy sunlight and youthful passion; had traced the pads of her thumbs along his jaw through the short, tickling hair of his beard; had tasted the wine from his noon meal in his mouth; had felt the tight line of his broad shoulders ease and melt at her touch; had danced away smiling and laughing at him when his arms had risen to encircle her. 

Darius Crowley had spoken to her, not long after the last wave of refugees had trudged gratefully to Duskhaven for safety, and told her his own recollection of Genn’s decision. Mia knows the gleam of obstinacy that would ignite in her husband’s eyes better than anyone alive, so well that Darius knows better than to try and describe it to her, and she pictures it in her mind’s eye every time she thinks of that night. 

The truth is that Genn Greymane was willing to fight and die for more than the safety and prosperity of his people; he was willing to die for the life of his son, for atonement of his mistakes, for the barest chance that his choices could make the future better. For hope. And Mia burns inside knowing that for all his vows to her, he had been a King before they even met, and had sworn deeper oaths to a more demanding mistress than she could ever be. 

Gilneas is not the oldest of the human kingdoms, but over her history she has tasted the blood of more than her fair share of kings--Greymane blood; spilt to conquer and then defend her, spilt in folly and in desperation, spilt in passion and in ambition. But spilt willingly, each and every one, when they ascended to the throne. 

Mia receives the news that the surviving Druids have at last decided to gather and divine the appropriate date for Liam’s coronation with mingled trepidation and renewed grief. Still, she finds her own heavy robes, and climbs through the foothills in the moonlight until she reaches the ancient menhirs at which all of Gilneas’ kings have been crowned. Her grandmother had been a harvest witch, and Mia had learned at her feet as a girl; the subtle weaving of growth and decay, the balance of living things, the quiet voice of nature. When she enters the circle she is not a Queen among her subjects, but a Druidess among her fellows. 

The fires have already been lit; the clearness of the night sky a rarity, and from the top of the cliff the fog rolling in off the sea shrouding the lights of Duskhaven can be seen. Mia joins her voice to the chant, and the gathered Druids move closer to the light and warmth of the circle as the cold night air moans and drags at their robes as it knifes between the standing stones. 

The Druids had been the spiritual guides among the human tribes that had originally settled the Gilnean Peninsula, and over the centuries they had maintained their practice when other human kingdoms had given it up in favor of the Church of Holy Light. Eventually the church had come to Gilneas as well, but its influence had never been as powerful or far-reaching as in Lordaeron or Stormwind. The Cathedral of the Light in Gilneas City was grand enough, but had been built more to keep Gilneas abreast of the other kingdoms than out of any specific sense of piety. The kings had still performed the old rites, and been crowned at the standing stones first before returning to the capital for their more courtly ceremony. 

It had amused Mia, for a short moment of distraction before the gravity of what they suffered had reasserted itself, that the cathedral and all of Gilneas City--and her  _ husband _ \--had been lost, but this ancient place had endured. The months since they had fled the capitol when the worgen had overrun it had seen more of a return to Gilneas’ old traditions than anyone wanted to admit, but the curse had run rampant among them and the old superstitions had followed in its wake. How was anyone to be told something was impossible, when husbands and wives and daughters and sons had been  _ transformed _ in such a way. When spies from beyond the wall spoke of the fall of Lordaeron and the risen dead roaming the land. 

When the chalice of wine reached her, Mia drank deeply before passing it on. She turned her face up to study the stars as the eldest in the circle cast herbs into the fire and began to murmur auguries to themselves. She’d been too young to attend the divination for Genn’s own coronation, but by the time it had been deemed most auspicious she’d finished her apprenticeship and had accompanied her grandmother to the coronation itself--the  _ true _ coronation, her grandmother had told her--and stood in dark, nondescript robes almost identical to the ones she wore now along the outer edge of the standing stones. Watching and bearing witness as a tall, raw-boned boy of sixteen slowly climbed the narrow craggy path leading up the hill. Genn had had a sombre bearing, dressed all in mourning black; trailed by lords and advisors who had served King Archibald, with Queen Cecily and Genn’s sister, Princess Katherine, leading their procession. 

Mia breathes in the fragrant smoke from the divinatory fire and glances to the very spot she stood the first time she ever laid eyes on the love of her life, and finally begins to weep in silence. From across the fire she looks into the past and sees herself as she was: a tender girl of fifteen; long chestnut hair spilling out from under the hood of her robe; delicate freckles beneath the red that crept across her face and nose from the freezing air that had stung her bare skin that long-distant winter’s night. She remembers the way her boots had crunched through the snow as she’d taken her place; the stark black of the standing stones in the moonlight, silhouetted against the field of white covering the top of the cliffs, their shadows forming esoteric geometries that would become half-shapes under her gaze before a cloud would drift across the moon or the bonfires would flicker and the pattern would break and change. 

Genn had seemed fearless as he entered the circle alone--the rest of the royal party staying back beyond the edge of the firelight, as per the old tradition--his hair still fully black, without a hint of silver; with no cloak or cape to guard him from the cold as he called out to the Druids with the first words of the ritual. A vitality had seemed to spill out of him and be drawn into the fire and the freezing monoliths of the stones, Mia’s voice had joined with all the others as the chants had been sung and Genn had answered with the old words; tradition laid down by the first kings when magic had run loose and rampant through the world and their oaths and will had been transmuted into something more than mortal power could understand, as Gilneas reached out and claimed their bloodline for herself. 

Mia’s throat had been sore from the cold air and full-voiced tones the ritual demanded by the time Genn had knelt shakily in the half-melted icy slush at the edge of the central firepit and tugged off his gloves with clumsy, chilled fingers to offer his bared palms up to the oldest of the druid-witches presiding over the ceremony. The silvered flash of a ritual knife in the darkness was all that could be seen before the flat of the blade was laid sharply against Genn’s outstretched hands; twin lines of blood curving along the callused mounds of his thumbs even as he delicately closed his fingers around the blade and struggled to get his numbed legs under him to stand and complete the ritual. 

_ “Who stands before the flame, and offers blood for the right to rule us?” chant countless voices in the dark, ringing over the cliff’s edge and echoing off the looming monoliths bounding the ancient circle. _

_ “Genn Greymane,” the voice of a boy-nearly-man answers back, proud and stubborn with the confidence of his birthright as he grips the knife tightly enough to draw blood again, and then thrusts his hands--knife and all--into the ritual fire. The air shivers around him as the flames crackle and rise hungrily to lick along his outstretched hands and up his arms along the trails of dripping blood; the flame does not change, for nature did not alter at the whims of men, but he is not burned. He holds the knife until the heat grows unbearable, and then drops it into the fire and pulls his hands back; he is not burned, but the fire--Gilneas--has tasted his blood and drunk all that was offered, the open wounds on his hands have been healed to white, shining scars, and he raises his voice again. _

_ “King by right, King by blood.”  _

* * *

Liam’s coronation is set for the next full moon, and Mia wanders slowly down from the rocky foothills that ascend to the high cliffs the standing stones were raised upon in the early dawn light. Her eyes are swollen from crying, but the chilly air and the gentle rain that rolled in from the sea soothes her enough to breathe easily after a long night weighed down by reminiscing. 

Although she was present for the divination, Mia does not make the announcement herself; it is not her place, now that she is down from the hills and once more a Queen. Her voice will not be added to the chant when Liam steps into the circle for the ritual; she will stand apart, in the darkness, and bear witness from the outside as a Queen. It is something she thought she had accepted long ago; but now, fresh in her heartbreak, Mia resents the traditions even as she understands their importance. She plans accordingly, though, for all that will need to be done before and after the coronation. 

It almost shocks her to realize that they’ve passed more than half a year since the flight from the capitol. That the spring thaw had passed, and the gentle rains of Gilneas’ summers had come and gone, and that the Harvest Moon was waxing towards fullness. It was a good omen, especially in a time of such troubles as they’d had; a king crowned under the Harvest Moon. The observation of the equinox and the rites and festivities involved happening just before would set the tone of the celebrations afterward; an autumn king, cautious and wise, able to see them through the winter, was what Mia hoped Liam would be and what would give the most hope to their people.

Genn had been crowned under the Mourning Moon, before the winter solstice, and the witch-mothers who led the coven of seers had spoken of signs; a new king and a time of change, a cooling of the blood for Gilneas after Archibald’s death and Archibald’s wars. 

The equinox is marked with greater than usual enthusiasm this year, and no one is particularly surprised by it. Mia herself is Queen and druid both, during the rites, and as she has every year since she became Genn’s Queen she weaves the wheat into braids and lights the candles and pours out the mead and dedicates the last of the late-summer flowers on their family’s private altar as well as the Crown’s public one. It’s almost reassuring, how no matter what’s happened, the seasons continue to turn; it’s clear on the faces of her people as they gather for the official dedications, before Mia sets her torch to the wicker effigy raised in Duskhaven’s town square. It is the first party she’s been to since she put on her mourning black, and Mia dances through the square with her hair--as grey as Genn’s had been, long before he was rightly old enough to have grey hair at all--wild and her face smeared with the ceremonial ashes and feels almost,  _ almost _ light enough make it through her son’s coronation and endure when the Nights of All Souls come upon them. 

Two nights later, when she helps Tess into her heaviest cloak and they set out on their long procession into the foothills to the standing stones, Mia still feels the sense of peace she gained during the equinox. They have no torches, and ahead of them Liam is a vague dark shape limned in the moonlight, but Mia keeps half an ear on the party of nobles and other guests climbing behind her, and discreetly ignores the way Tess and Lorna Crowley link arms and whisper quietly to each other in favor of listening to Krennan Aranas describe his latest efforts to Darius. The moon is a deep gold, hanging low and heavy in the sky, and as the procession winds its way up along the rocky path the bonfires lit at the hill’s summit turn from flickering points of distant light to beacons marking their destination. 

Mia steps up beside Liam for a moment, when they reach the crest of the hill, from where Liam will have to go on alone, and sets her hand on her son’s shoulder. It feels like a half-measure, to merely  _ tell _ him that she loves him, and is proud of him, and that his father loved him and would have been so terribly proud of him as well; she knows that guilt has preyed on Liam’s mind, these last months, of the last time he spoke to his father, and the things left unresolved between them. Liam has matured, stepping into the role of King as his people needed him to--like Mia he has had little time to himself to grieve--and she sees her son as the man he has become. Tall and broad like his father, with chestnut hair like hers in her youth, a thick grey streak already running through it just like it had Genn’s hair at Liam’s age. Though she feels it isn’t enough, Liam smiles--barely visible in the moonlight--and promises her that he knows, before turning to the waiting circle of standing stones and the dark-robed shapes of the Druids in the firelight, and beginning to stride forward, calling out the first words of the ritual as he went. 

After taking part in the ritual herself, observing is something of an anticlimax, Mia finds. The chant is indistinct outside the circle of firelight, and while the view of the moon rising over the standing stones is spectacular Mia has seen it before. Tess stands beside her and watches intently, however--the first time she has ever seen it--and so Mia focuses on the shadowed form of her son silhouetted against the firelight as he goes through the last few parts of the ritual; kneeling before the ritual fire as the druid-witch leading the ritual lays the blade of a knife hard against his hands. He stands, and thrusts them--knife and all--into the fire; Tess gasping loudly beside her and clutching at her mother’s arm as the knife flashes in the firelight.

The fire explodes out of the firepit it was contained in, and lashes up at the sky in a pillar of heat and smoke. Liam drops the knife into the flames as he dives backwards and away, and the druids scatter to try and contain the blaze, but the crone who’d led the ritual steps forward towards the sweltering heat and calls for them to stop. 

Mia leaves the vague boundary behind which Queens have stood for a thousand years, and lifts her skirts to sprint forward to where her son lays stunned beside one of the monoliths. The ritual is broken well enough, she can see, and while she doesn’t know why she won’t endure the suspense of knowing if Liam has been harmed. 

The druids have split between preparing to attempt to douse the fire, and attempting to support their leader as she begins to attempt divining the cause of what’s happened. Mia is near enough to the fire that she’s aware of their progress as she helps Liam sit up against the nearest stone and checks his face and hands for burns. He’s flushed and warm, but the fire at least spared him its anger before it rebelled against the ceremony; the wounds on his hands have been healed somewhat, they’re no longer fresh and bleeding, but also are not the gleaming scars Mia saw years ago on Genn’s hands.

The fire dies down almost to its embers as the druids take up their leader’s chant, before rising to new and greater heights; a massive blaze, as tall as the standing stones surrounding it. For a moment the fire stays strangely still, wild magic pouring through the circle and raising the hair on Mia’s arms; enough to pull spectral winds through the precisely calculated gaps between the stones that tear at her dress and hair and the druid’s robes and feed the fire as it grows brighter and hotter despite its growing lack of fuel.

Then, a wolf howls in the distance.

An image appears in the flame: the shape of a great beast with a gleam of night eyes. The howl sounds again, seeming to come from within the flames and far away simultaneously. The image within the flames grows clearer: the most massive worgen Mia has ever seen, its muzzle coated in blood, standing half-hunched over the bleeding corpse of another beast within a circle of its fellow worgen while they cower away from it. 

Goosebumps crawl along Mia’s skin as she watches the beast raise its head in triumph before the image flickers and distorts within the fire--she’s seen that motion before, the rise and tilt of Genn’s chin when he’s particularly pleased with himself, and knows in her soul  _ exactly _ what’s become of her husband--and before her eyes, the flame rises and then dims, slowly allowing itself to be contained again. 

Cradling her still-stunned son in her arms, Mia stares into the flames and receives one last glimpse of the Genn-creature: straightening up to tower over the other worgen, before throwing his beast’s-head back, jaws just beginning to part around the sound rising from his throat.

As the fire gutters out, and the druids and royal party both are left half-blind in the moonlight, a wolf’s howl echoes across the vast dark forests of Gilneas; reaching across the low-sloping and misty coastal mountains; across the crags and moors of the headlands; through the tangled thickets and deep shadows of the blackwald.

The Druidess who lead the coronation-turned-divination pushes herself up onto her knees from where she had fallen, and shouts into the night.

_ The King lives! Long live the King! _

**Author's Note:**

> I threw a lot of my personal headcanons into this re: Gilneas' history and pretty much everything. So like, bear with me on some of the worldbuilding.
> 
> Also thanks to IvoryTower for bestowing on me the headcanon that Katherine Proudmoore's maiden name was Greymane


End file.
